VARNA — The Midland School Board was called “cowardly” Monday night as they fired third-year high school boys basketball coach Jeff Herkelman on his 53rd birthday without stating any reason.

The board turned deaf ears to pleas from Herkelman, his wife Lisa, several players, and other supporters in voting 7-0 “not to re-employ” him as coach and as a health and drivers’ education teacher.

Herkelman, who had compiled an overall 35-53 record, would have been eligible for tenure after this year. He defended his job performance in remarks to the board, but was also candid about new job prospects for someone at this stage of his career.

“There’s not a lot of jobs out there,” he said.

Lisa Herkelman was even more sharply outspoken. She called district superintendent Rolf Sivertsen a “coward” when he told her at the end of the meeting that no reason would be given, and she made similar comments to the board before the vote.

“This is a cowardly way for a school system to treat its employees, when they’re not willing to look us in the eye and tell us why they’re taking (the employees’) livelihoods away,” she said.

The board action marked the second time in three years that Midland has fired its coach without stating a reason. Joe Mintus was dumped in 2011, but he remains a tenured Midland teacher, and has since become the coach at Illinois Valley Central High School in Chillicothe.

Herkelman had moved his family to Hennepin in 2008 to take a job at Putnam County High School after teaching and coaching for two decades in and around his native Clinton, Ia. He was fired by a divided Putnam County School Board two years later and became a part-time assistant to Mintus at Midland.

After Mintus was axed, Herkelman was hired full-time. His first indication that he was losing the job, he said, was when Sivertsen informed himFriday afternoon, just moments before sending media a special meeting notice including the expected action.

“When I asked him why, he wouldn’t give me an answer,” Herkelman said Monday. “He just said, ‘Life’s tough.’”

Before a 75-minute closed session that preceded the vote, board president Jenelle Colvin maintained that the board had information that was not publicly known and would not be released even to Herkelman.

“We can’t share that,” Colvin said.

In an unrelated matter, the board voted to hire Tom Seibert to replace the retired Galen Noard as head coach of the River Valley Falcons, a cooperative football team that also includes Henry-Senachwine and Low Point-Washburn. Seibert is a Midland teacher who has been an assistant coach.